Maisara looked over her reports. Sudden attacks in the north. Several at the same time. And Olonia was using her eagle now. She was attacking during the day and the night, sometimes her forces would engage before she even got there. This past week, Lubska’s “Army” had been moving lethargically. And now, it was moving as if it was frantically running out of time.
Something had changed, these frantic moves had the stink of Kassandora on them.
“Production is up again, we’re running at full-steam in the new district.” Arascus listened to Sokolowski finish his report. War administration was always a pain, every facet of peacetime ruling could be delegated away whereas every facet of wartime ruling had to be carefully monitored because no one but Arascus would do a job as well as him. So he sat in the Imperial Governance Office of Kirinyaa, the building that once housed the National Assembly. It was the only building that would do, designed by Divines, for Divines, there was no other building with doorframes Arascus could simply walk through without craning his neck. It did make all the humans look comically downsized though, but Sokolowski seemed to take no issue with it, he simply kept on giving his report. “I’ve put a man called Haki in charge of the organization of the new housing district. He’s native here and that’s all I’ll say about him.” Sokolowski finished with a perfect salute as Arascus leaned back on his chair. Helenna tapped her pen against her piece of paper and readjusted the folders by her side.
“That’s all you’ll say about him?” Arascus asked, Damian Sokolowski did not even react to the accusatory tone. He wouldn’t though, Kassandora’s men rarely got flustered. This man was becoming another Iliyal, in his military uniform he stood, with the honorary rifle and pistol on his belt. All the officers were allowed to bring their weaponry into the Imperial Governance Offices, it wasn’t like they posed a threat to Divines anyway.
“I am certain he will do an acceptable job.” Sokolowski said. “He has finished a degree in urban planning from Nanbasa’s Westpoint University.” That was one of the best in the country, especially when it came to issues like this. Other schools could claim to have better scientists and technology, but no one produced better administrators than the place that lay in the middle of the country’s administrative centre. “And he understands that the new town is to be designed for the war effort. Foundation excavations started a week ago.” Arascus nodded as he looked over to Helenna.
The Goddess of Love scrawled something on her piece of paper and shrugged. She wore the black HAUPT uniform that had become synonymous with Arascus’ rule. Today, her hair was a pale brown, that simply meant the woman was satisfied. Arascus wished all Goddesses had their emotions on display like that, it would make living in this world far easier. Helenna’s tall cap, with the emblem of a rose with huge thorns, sat on her desk in front of her. “Do you have anything to add?” Arascus asked. She probably wouldn’t, but the woman should be kept on good terms for now. She should feel as if she was doing something until Irinika and Malam were rescued from below at least.
“Nothing.” Helenna said, her hair turning a brighter shade for only a moment, as if it was a beating heart. “Thanks for asking.” Sokolowski did not even look at, that was another thing Arascus liked about the generals of Kassandora. They could stand in front of a circus and not see anything if not asked to.
“And the Epa situation?” Without Kassie here, it was hard to get news. Damian Sokolowski made a sorry face.
“I do not know. General Tremali only sends updates to Goddess Kassandora.” Arascus retreated further back into his seat. That was a big failure of how Kassie organised her armies, without her here, it was almost impossible to get any news.
“So she does.” Arascus said as he stood up. “You’re dismissed General.” He saluted to the human. The human returned the salute to the Divine. “Get to the sea-wall and keep preparing defences. If you hear anything from Tremali, then send word to me. We need to keep track of the Epan situation.”
“Yes Sir!” Damian Sokolowski answered. He turned around and made the formal goosestep out of Arascus’ room. Arascus sat back down and peered over his map of coastal Kirinyaa. Defences in Nanbasa were complete, that was true. The city was not fully defended, but it was defended enough to be able to repel the first wave. The rest of the country though?
Pitiful. Iniri had gone where she could. Most of the cities had her grown seawalls now, though none as grand as Nanbasa’s towering monsters, and only a few were reinforced in the same manner. But that was why Arascus had made so much publicity in the past week about being in Nanbasa and about preparing its defences. It was a plan him, Kassandora and Helenna had agreed on.
A news cycle filled with nothing but updates on the defences served two purposes. The obvious one was the rallying of morale amongst the population. They saw he was working on the imminent threat, and they gave their support when needed. Fortia’s invasion of Epa only brought credence to threat and it set a fuse off for Kirinyaa’s population. They thought they had until Fortia finished up in Epa, so the news of defences taking months to complete was glossed over. Months to defend a country was already fast. Whereas the other purpose it served was to force Allasaria to engage. Nanbasa specifically. Kassandora had given a presentation on how unassailable the walls were on national news. Helenna constantly talked about the procurement of arms and how Nanbasa alone produced most of the countries’ weaponry. That wasn’t even a lie. And Arascus made vague references about how not even titans would be able to cross the walls of Nanbasa once all the defences were finished.
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The goal was simple. It was to paint Nanbasa as a target so that the other cities would not be the focus. There was precisely no chance that Uriamel would only invade Nanbasa, but if most of Uriamel’s armies hit this city, then the others had a chance. “What do you think Helenna?” Arascus decided to make small talk. He had to be in the capital for now, but that was because mundane issues came up every hour or so. Someone had to be here to solve them.
“I was talking with Neneria.” Helenna said, she looked at Arascus with those warm eyes of hers and turned away after a moment, some colour in her cheeks. “Back when Iniri got lost in the Jungle. She said this to me, and she said Kass told her. The wait is the worst part.”
“That is Kass’s line.” Arascus confirmed, although no one understood the way Kassandora understood it. To everyone else, it was the fact that fear of a threat was usually greater than a threat itself. To Kassandora, it was more akin to needing release. “And she’s not wrong on it.”
“No, she’s not. It’s terrible.” Helenna confirmed. “I sit here and look out the window and there’s just ocean.” She looked past Arascus and out the window. “I’m glad it’s just ocean, but then that dread sets in again.” Arascus turned on his chair as he watched Nanbasa. All the streets were lit, the vehicles in the city’s animal reserve were turned off, but he could pick them out here and, hidden under trees, starlight glinting off them. Traffic had died down in the city, a good amount of the population had fled to the rural countryside deeper in the country. A few had even gone so far as to already start building on the land reclaimed from the Jungle.
Now, the city was like a tired heart. It beat twice a day, during morning rush hour and during the traffic jams in the evening when everyone was returning home from their work. Every other time, it remained quiet and dead, without so much as even a pedestrian walking about. The animals from the zoo had been evacuated, even the infrastructure of the city’s manufacturing district had been moved. Cannons had been positioned on the top of skyscrapers and city blocks, windows had been blown out to give vantage points for soldiers, roads around the port had been torn up to make sure they wouldn’t serve Uriamel’s forces. That entire part of the city had been rigged to blow.
Arascus looked up at the starry sky, the darkness retreating as the orange edge of dawn was approaching from the east. “Do you think we have a chance?” Helenna asked from behind him. He heard her stand up and walk besides him.
“I see no way forwards but victory.” Arascus replied and the Goddess of Love sniffed in humour.
“That may work on Princesses, but not on me.”
Arascus sniffed back, with just as much humour as she put into it. “Of the Old Guard, I assume there isn’t a single one of us who isn’t so jaded as to laugh at that.” Helenna popped open a bottle of wine behind him, the cork hit the ceiling and landed somewhere. “But I do genuinely believe it.”
“We all have our failings.” Helenna said as she came over, a glass of wine poured for Arascus. “And I don’t think that’s a failing.”
“Neither do I.” Arascus replied. “At least one of us needs to be an optimist.”
“I would have assumed that was Fer.” Helenna replied.
“Have you ever talked with Fer?”
“Have I?” Helenna asked, almost aghast as to how her honour could be questioned so much.
“I meant about the future.” Arascus said. As pleasant as Fer was, she was also the Goddess of Beasthood. The more one got to know her, the more one started to underestimate her nature.
“I’ve not.”
“Then you should.” Arascus said. “But Fer lives in the moment, she’s not an optimist or a pessimist, she’s just here.”
“We didn’t have anyone like that.” Helenna said. “The Forces I suppose, but for them, it’s more that they don’t want to cause trouble because then they’d have to work. Maisara, Fortia and Alla…” Helenna chuckled. “There isn’t much to say about them, is there?”
“There’s nothing to say that’s not been said before.” Arascus said. “But one optimist is needed. Someone needs to see the light at the end of the tunnel to guide the others.”
“And you see it?” Arascus looked down at the burgundy wine Helenna passed. Whether he saw it or not was not important. What was important was that others thought he saw it, because then they would want to follow along in his footsteps.
“I have to see it.” Arascus said. “Because if I don’t, then who does?”
“Mmh.” Helenna purred from the side of his chair as they watched the first sliver of the Sun breach the horizon. “I like the honesty of that answer.” Arascus merely sipped from his glass. He knew she would. Helenna liked any sort of news as long as she could read into it. So they sat, and waited, and watched the Sun rise.
Arascus looked over the city. Past the animal reserve Nanbasa was built around, now populated by military vehicles, artillery and self-propelled anti-air. Each one holding its gun as if it was a porcupine ready to defend against a giant animal. He looked past the industrial district, the warehouses evacuated of machinery to be replaced by soldiers and explosives, the whole section of the city ready to blow if it fell to invading forces. He looked passed Iniri’s seawall, a magnificent barrier of wood, taller than city blocks, filled in with concrete and steel and peppered with its own turrets and men. He looked past the dark blue ocean, once filled with countless ships, now empty and still.
Over the horizon, the Sun was rising, dawn was pushing away the starry night. And with that dawn came a figure. Floating in the air carried slowly. She was small, but Arascus could tell who it was with a single glance. There weren’t many Goddesses that tall, who let their pale hair grow so long it fell like a curtain behind them, past their hips. Who did not need armour but instead only donned a dress of white and gold.
Allasaria had come.